delia's garden of maybes
by ayebydan
Summary: Before Ash takes on another League he confronts his mother with the knowledge he has gained on the road. His father was a trainer. So where has he gone?


**delia's garden of maybes**

 _Before Ash takes on another League he confronts his mother with the knowledge he has gained on the road. His father was a trainer. So where has he gone?_

I don't know about you but I will remain on the Giovanni is Ash's dad train until my little trainer gets a canon daddio. Normally I would deem pokefic too short for this site but heyho. My first fic was pokefic. I wrote Officer Jessie like reports on my grandads, made them into big colourful fonts and reported in serious voices. So it matters a lot to me.

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Ash watches Pikachu hassle Mimey in to the kitchen, the larger pokemon trying to smack the other with a mop and failing miserably. It makes him laugh. Wide brown eyes meet his own. Then a tilt of the head. A slight spark in red cheeks. Pikachu knows he needs time, and the little menace will make sure that he gets it. Staring out onto the lawns he sees his mother, Delia, fussing with her garden bushes and grabs the two fresh waters he has prepared and makes his way outside.

"Hey mom? Are you thirsty? I thought you might like one of these? I learned on my travels that water sure is important!"

She smiles and nods and gets out of the dirt, her gloves cast aside, before moving to join him on the low wall by their house and taking a bottle. "Thoughtful of you. Thank you!"

Ash laughs and takes a drink of his water, allows his mother to do the same, and then peers over his shoulder to make sure that Pikachu has everything under control. Man, he loves that electric mouse.

"You are going to go see my pokemon at the lab while I am gone right? I still feel bad about leaving them but I feel moving to the next league will be more real if I only take Pikachu and work from there."

Delia laughs and waves towards Professor Oak's lab in the distance, "I was doing that anyway! I love your pokemon, son! I am happy to go visit them and I know you won't forget them and that is what matters."

"Thanks mom."

She wraps her arm around him and pulls him close and for a short time he can forget that he is a trainer and trying to beat leagues and has to travel alone with only a single pokemon to protect him. For a good half hour he curls into his mom and enjoys the safety of her presence until it gets too hot and he moves to shrug out of his jacket. It forces him to take in his surroundings.

The flowers look great. Mimey sure has done a great job, on the garden and helping his mom. It makes him feel bad about he is going to do. Hurt her. But it seems there will be no other choice so he takes another deep drink from his bottle and when his mom smiles at him he nods in return and then pulls his gloves free. It makes her stare.

"So...I mean, people talk on the road you know? "

"Sure do. I bet you learned a lot huh, son?"

"Yeah mom. But. I wonder things. Like. I get that my dad wanted to be a pokemon master and that is cool but ...everyone I see trying to that is my age so...where was he when I was a kid? Why didn't he come back? I keep running into people saying that is what you wanted to do. What he wanted but-"

Ash has never really seen his mom unhappy but it comes close when she pulls her green plastic gloves closer to her and then huffs and throws them off into the distance and sighs. "I do not know what to tell you, Ash. I really do not know I know what you are asking. I will not pretend I don't. I run the restaurant because pokemon battles don't pay for babies. And I had a baby. Young. Nineteen. A wonderful baby. You. I had four badges but that did not mean anything."

"Four? That's awesome mom. Why didn't you tell me?"

She stares at her flowers for a few seconds again and then look towards him, "People told you enough about your father. I didn't want to give you something else to live up to, son. I just wanted you to go out there and have fun. I worked hard for years so that we had a roof over our head and that when, not if but when, you went out there I could send you cash any time you needed it."

Then she makes that laugh that sounds almost like a demand to leave it and starts to make it to her feet but Ash grabs her hand at the last second and pulls her back down.

"Please. Mom."

She stares at the kitchen window where Ash can hear their pokemon clattering about, obviously not happy with one another, before she sighs and sinks to the ground again.

"You missed the point about how I was too young and I could not afford to have a child and be a trainer. Try remember those things. Especially if you decide you like a girl - No Ash you listen to me! You think you just popped up out of nowhere!"

"Blagh! So that is how it is!"

"Not at all! Now you sit down there young man and you listen! You know what I mean!" Ash feels all the colour drain from his face and spends a good amount of his time distracting himself with his water bottle but if this is the price he has to pay for information he will pay it. And, well he did learn something.

Delia peers at him for several minutes before finishing her own bottle of water and then returning to the small garden wall, "Now...about your father, if you insist. He was older. A leader of a company. He...we ...we had a good time together and we loved each other...but I could not stay where he was. I had badges to win and then...well then I realised I something more important to fight for and...and."

Her eyes well out and Ash meets the face of his Pikachu in the window of his childhood home, watches the mouse nod and disappear from view for a few seconds ,and then suddenly come bounding towards him.

They know each other so well.

Pikachu sits in his lap as he holds back tears and listens. His mother reaches to offer comfort but after a few tentative attempts seems to realise that is not her place anymore. Ash clings to his pokemon and stares his mother down, hardly aware of Mimey's own hand around her shoulder.

"He loved you. But he couldn't be here. Ash I, Ash I can't say-"

"You don't have to. I know. I have worked it out. C'mon Pikachu."

'Pika pi'

Together they return to the house and Ash takes some of the rice rolls Mimey has prepared despite Pikachu's interference and heads for his bed.

They will be gone by morning.

It will hurt his mom, but both her and Mimey will be smiling at the call from the next ferry terminal.

So will Ash and Pikachu.


End file.
